Page 65 of The Omega Slave

He’d cried a second time over her for that because not once had she asked anything of him except companionship. The next week he had been almost incandescent with excitement knowing he would be leaving with her, but she hadn’t arrived, and four days later Ishmael had informed them all that the great lady Sophia Dashanne had died following a fall from her horse.

That day had been the last day he had cried in Ishmael’s house.

“Nothing to say?” Elainore’s voice came from the body he didn’t recognize.

He stared at her as a man—around twenty summers—moved alongside her between the stoic guards. “My queen. The rats are just about ready to move.”

She turned and her lips cracked in a smile. Tsaria watched in horror as her lip split and a trickle of blood ran down her chin. “Choi, you are one of my most dependable warriors.” He glanced at the man and gaped. It was as if the man—Choi—was seeing a different Elainore than the one he was. Elainore touched a finger to his bare chest and slid it down to his leather breeches. Tsaria watched as Choi’s breath hitched and the bulge in his groin expanded in what couldn’t be mistaken as anything other than lust. He had seen it often enough to know.

Tsaria’s mind whirled. Was it possible that in all the illusions Elainore had promised, the greatest one was herself? But he’d seen her before. Why was he seeing her in her true form—if that’s what it was—now?

Goddess, but he missed Kamir. He would give much to see him one last time, because he knew even though Kamir would be desperate to get to him, he’d never been in the sewers in his life and Mansala would never let him out of his sight.

Then he felt the love that enveloped him. A warmth rushed over him that he couldn’t describe with any other word. He felt like he’d been found. Rescued.If you overlooked being tied and in the sewers.That almost made him smile, which was ridiculous, and made him want to smile even more. He closed his eyes and basked in the feeling that surrounded him, urging him to hold on. They were coming for him; he just had to hold on.

He heard Elainore murmur something to the man and something told him not to reveal he could see Elainore’s true form. “We leave as soon as our visitor arrives.”

Who?Tsaria thought and tried again. “I’m a simple pleasure slave. I have no value—"

Elainore laughed. “You don’t think the emir is just going to let you go?” She leaned forward. “My people have waited over ten generations to be set free. You think we like living in dirt? Do youthink for one second that if he doesn’t give up his crown, I won’t slit his throat while he sleeps?”

Tsaria gazed at her in horror, thankful that between Mansala and Damatrious she would never get her hands on Kamir. “But you have Gabar. Why do you need Kamir?”

Elainore’s jaw worked. “It is better for all peoples if we have a swift transition.”

“A transition to what?” Tsaria asked, genuinely puzzled, but with an awful thought. She’d said she wanted a home for her people, but what if that home wasn’t a stretch of land with water access? What if it was a palace?

He was right. He knew he was.

She turned to one of the other men. “Let me know the second Nana Bex arrives.”

Tsaria had even more trouble keeping his face straight that time. Nana Bex? The bitch that Jael had told them conned mothers into prostituting themselves so their kids could share a ratty old mattress, then turned around and did the same to the kids so their mothers were allowed the same?

Why wasn’t he surprised? Did she run this part of the sewers? Like Moxie? Tam had told him there were various gangs down here, and then he heard the frightened cries of what sounded like a child and opened his eyes. The cry was cut off rather abruptly before a woman shuffled into sight. They stared at each other. She spat what looked like a glob of chewing tobacco on the floor, and Tsaria did his best not to let his revulsion show. He was supposed to be good at this. He’d spent the last nine summers behind a mask, and he’d seen worse, so much worse. Why was he having so much trouble now?

“This Kamir’s fancy piece?” Nana Bex looked at him with avarice gleaming in her bloodshot eyes.

“I’m a slave,” Tsaria bit out, even knowing it was useless. “I have zero value to—”

“To ‘im?” Nana Bex finished for him, just as two large boys dragged another man into sight. He was unconscious. Tsaria stilled. His lungs seemed to freeze. He knew who it was before Nana Bex grabbed Kamir by the hair and raised his head. Elainore let out a startled cry and then threw her head back and shrieked, bloody spittle flying. “You fool!” she spat.

Tsaria wanted to scream, curse. If he had a blade, both women would be bleeding out on the stone floor.

Nana Bex looked over at Elainore. “Calm down. Found him a mile from the palace. Stuck out like a sore thumb, and my boys clocked him right away. We made sure he’s unconscious so he can’t grow scales. Wonder how much they’ll pay now?”

Chapter twenty-eight

“Is there anything else you can remember?” Kamir asked hopefully. Jael needed a bath and rest, but he was worried Jael might be intimidated in front of them all and worry any information he wasn’t sure about might be dismissed.

Jael paused, shaking his head, cramming a hunk of spiced lamb into his mouth, then chewed and swallowed. Kamir stared at the little boy who had been forced to grow up way too soon. He watched him eat, then led Jael to the bathing room and began to draw a bath, but Jael shook his head. “I need to go back.”

Kamir looked up, startled. “Go back?”

“I have to make sure Moxie understands in case Tam can’t get to her. It’s too risky.”

Kamir had no words for such an overwhelming offer. He wanted to say something, anything, to Jael, but he didn’t know what. And he was so ashamed. He had a dragon, and yet a child was going to war for him. He helped get some of the grime off him, but Jael refused the clothes. “I’ll stick out,” he mumbled around another spiced hunk of lamb he’d grabbed as soon asKamir took him back into the salon feeling at a complete loss of what to say. But Kamir couldn’t allow this. Jael was a child. He just didn’t know how to tell him that.

Jael looked up at him warily. “I wanna stay with you. Flynn said I could be like him. That if I worked hard, it wouldn’t matter what I was born to.”

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